Disclaimers: Everything good belongs to someone else. CSI belongs to people at CBS. The song ‘If You Want To’ belongs to Melissa Etheridge and her record company. I own nothing and I make no profit from playing with the characters and ideas.

Author’s notes: This is songfic.

Catherine lay on her bed wishing that sleep would come. Ever since her promotion to swing shift supervisor she had had trouble sleeping. Clearly her body still thought that that she should be awake at 2am. She sighed turning over and willed her body to relax. Her mind drifted over to the confrontation that she had had with Sara last week. Another one of their almost legendary public blowouts and this one had resulted in Sara being suspended. Well not exactly their confrontation but Sara had sounded off at Ecklie which had been the direct cause, no doubt all upset from Catherine telling her off. Not that she didn’t deserve what I said, Catherine realised, but did I have to be so harsh to her about it? There was something about Sara that got under her skin and made it impossible not to have extreme reactions to everything she did. Which means that when we’re good we’re very very good and when we’re bad we’re horrid, Catherine thought. After Sara had stomped off to the locker room Catherine had hurried to catch up with her, not to apologise but to, well Catherine had to admit to herself that she didn’t know why she had followed Sara. After watching Sara throw things into her bag for a few seconds Catherine had said:

“Sara, um if…”

“Jesus Christ Catherine!”

Sara had jumped a foot in the air and managed to drop something on her foot.

“Sorry I..”

“Thought of something else you forgot to tell me before?” Sara asked venomously “But shouldn’t we wait for someone to come in, you know cause it just isn’t the same without an audience.”

Catherine willed herself not to respond to this.

“Sara” she tried again “I’m sorry about Ecklie.”

“Yeah, well Ecklie’s an asshole” Sara said more quietly, sitting down on the bench to change out of her boots.

Catherine watched her as she did this, long fingers unlacing the laces, hands easing the leather down a shapely calf. Get a grip, she told herself angrily, this isn’t the time for remembering how attracted you are to her.

“Look, what do you want Catherine? I’m tired and I’m pissed and I want to go home and have a drink. Can this wait?”

Sara looked up shock registering on her face: ”You want me to call you to talk about my problems? Since when do you care about my problems?”

“For god’s sake, Sara” Catherine finally snapped “Can’t you just take anything at face value. I’m not the hard hearted bitch that you seem to think I am. I…”

“You didn’t seem to care before when you attacked me in front of everyone” Sara interrupted her.

“That was work. You were in the wrong. But I think there’s something deeper going on here and if you want to talk…” Catherine heard herself trail off.

“Yeah, whatever. I call you in a couple of days.” Sara muttered before going back to changing her shoes.

Catherine watched for a second before turning on her heel, bitting her tongue to prevent more angry words that she didn’t really mean spilling out.

Catherine sighed and rolled over in her bed again. It had been almost a week and Sara was due back at work soon, and predictably had never called. Not that I thought she would, Catherine told herself, I just hoped that maybe this time I could mend the growing breech between Sara and me. To say that they had a complicated relationship was an understatement. And more complicated by the fact that Catherine knew she would like to have a different sort of relationship with Sara, the sort that involved lots of mind blowing sex and then cooking pancakes for breakfast before going to watch Lindsey play soccer together. Like that will ever happen, Catherine thought, deciding to go and make some tea.

As she waited for the kettle to boil Catherine thought she heard the distant sound of her phone ringing. Shit only work rings this late, Catherine cursed inwardly, as she tried to get to the phone before it woke Lindsey. Just as she reached the door of her room it stopped. Finding the phone still in the pocket of her jacket which was hung on the back of the door Catherine checked and saw the message pending symbol. Finding the right combination of buttons in the semi darkness she put the phone to her ear.

“Um Catherine, hi. It’s me Sara. I um know it’s late but I thought that, you know you said. Anyway, sorry I know its late but hey just forget it.”

Catherine stared at the phone.

“I didn’t mean for you to call me in the middle of the night” she said aloud to it, as if Sara could hear her.

Catherine went back to the kitchen, still holding her mobile and made herself some tea. As she sat at the table waiting for it to cool she found herself checking in her phone book for Sara’s home number. Before she could think too much about this, reminding herself that Sara had rung her, Catherine pushed the dial key.

“Hello”

“Hey Sara it’s me, Catherine.”

“Catherine I ..um… hey you called back!”

“So did you, although I thought you said you’d call in a couple of days. It’s been, what 7?” Catherine kept her tone teasing.

“Yeah, sorry about that, I’m moving kinda slow at the moment…”

If You Want To – Melissa Etheridge

Hello yes that's what I said
I guess I thought that I was dead
So I just called you from my bed to say hello
You see I got this funny notion
Life is only just an ocean
I've been drowning in emotion
Now I'm swimming back to shore
And I'd like to talk to you

CHORUS

If you want to you can call I'll be around
If you want to you can write this number down
If you want to
If you want to leave a message at the tone
If you want to you can call me here at home
If you want to
I'll be alone

So now I've called
Yes it's been a couple days
Okay seven this I know
But I've been movin' kinda slow
So I called oh it must be so appalling
If you think that I've been stalling
This is me now I am calling
And I'm better than before
And I'd like to talk to you

Don't you want to know don't you want to be
Someone who takes a chance
On a fool like me
Staring at the door
Staring down the hall
Waiting my whole life just for you to call

Hello yes that's what I said
I am breathing I'm not dead
I'm waiting here now in my bed
And I'd like to talk to you

If you want to let your fingers do the walk
If you want to I got hours I can talk
If you want to